[Writing] Revision, Perfection, Productivity and Clarity

[jon_chaisson]

As I've said earlier, I hadn't done a lick of writing work since we took off last Monday on our trip down the coast. It wasn't until yesterday evening, a day after we returned home, when I turned on the PC again and started getting something done. I opened up the latest version of A Division of Souls and got a good few pages of revision done. It still isn't quite up to my liking, but at the same time I think I may have my standards set a bit too high. That's partly why I took the time off--to clear my head of everything.

Speaking of revision, I had a short but interesting conversation with aberwyn at her LJ about it...I will admit here and now that I do a lot of hemming and hawing and getting all stressed out about revision, specifically of the "I suck" variety, but once I get it out of my system, I shut up and get it done anyway. Revision isn't my favorite thing to do, but it's necessary and there are worse things in the world that need doing, and I know I'm not the only writer who feels that way. I think my biggest issue with revising my own work is that, on the outset, I really look forward to fixing any problems and making the story better...only to see the reality of what needs fixing and how far from perfect it may be.

Which brings me to the next thing--perfection. I think my latest self-destructive writing hangup is that I seem to forget the difference between professional writing and my own personal style. All writers have their own specific personal style (usually described using their last name with an "-ian" suffix, natch--I'll leave examples to you, humble reader), and I know I have mine. I tend to stay with a blue-collar, working-man dialogue and a very visual and aural exposition, with simple sentences and words rather than being technical or verbose. I think over the last few months (and before I started my schedule) I began to get frustrated because I was starting to see my work as crap, mainly due to the fact that I was comparing it to other writers' styles. It might be that I'm at the tail end of kateelliott's Crossroads trilogy and I've always loved her richly descriptive style, and yet that's a style that I don't think I would ever be able to reach unless given years of practice, more education, and a hell of a lot more spare time. During this vacation, while deliberately keeping away from my writing, I came to the conclusion that that was precisely my problem--I was trying to revise these books by writing like someone else, not myself. That's all fine and dandy if I'm deliberately trying to emulate someone I'm not, but that's not what I'm trying to do. SO--upon picking up A Division of Souls last night, I started looking at my writing not as craptastic drivel written by a hack, but decent prose that just needs a bit of cleaning up.

That said, onto the next item--productivity. One of the strangest things about recently turning 40 is discarding one of my original thoughts about my writing career--that I wanted to get as many stories out there as I could. Not exactly on a yearly basis like Stephen King used to, or have an output of every half-hour like Tyler Perry. Granted, as I've mentioned many times before, I wrote The Persistence of Memories (Book 2 in the trilogy) in exactly one year, but that was during a very productive (and very open-scheduled) time, and I think more of a fluke than anything. The fact that I did it is good enough for me--I'm proud that I wrote it that fast, and if given time and directive, I could probably do it again. That said, I began to realize that maybe I only have a dozen story ideas in me and not an infinite number, and I'm okay with that now. If something new and unexpected comes along, I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with letting some story ideas go (such as most of the ones I worked on in my youth that weren't reworked into other projects later on) to become trunk novels. All of us writers have those. This realization lifted a lot of the frustration I'd had in the past. Added to the fact that when I created my schedule, while I haven't exactly been following it to the letter this past month, I've been consistent in at least getting something done. More importantly, I can safely say that I've grown out of giving up the schedule because I fell off that particular wagon. As long as I'm going in the right direction, that's all that truly matters. I can get back on schedule easily enough.

Lastly, clarity. This is more about the revision of A Division of Souls, but I think it's worth mentioning. I admit that, due to a lack of a complete outline for the trilogy, there are a number of things wrong with it. Inconsistencies abound, not to mention dead-end subplots (and, near the end, a 'seemed like a good idea at the time' plot device that needs replacing). And worse, a lot of exposition passages were, of course, mini-infodumps that took away from the flow. At this point in my career, I think I've become more aware of when these problems arise and how to fix them. That is, to give my prose clarity and get rid of the clunkiness. As I said above, my mistake is that I was mistaking clarity for needing to change my style. Now that I've realized the difference, the road ahead seems...well, clearer.


And that's what I've been thinking about during vacation. :)

Comments

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I think the best piece of writing advice I've ever gotten was from Damon Knight when I was explaining to him that I was having doubts about if I was writing the right thing or, perhaps more saliently, if the kind of thing I was writing was *worth* writing (and therefore reading), and he said, "we write what is in us to write."

So, yes: write like yourself. Figure out what "yourself" is in this context.

[joncwriter.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think I already know (or at least have a general idea) of what my personal style is, and it's just a matter of reminding myself every now and again of what it is. Once I have that down, the honing and the sharpening of the skills should be less frustrating and elusive. Hopefully. :)